This is what [Norman Vine <nhv@cape.com>] recommends for general
Cygwin development.

Note:  This will be a Unix like system and not a Windows IDE
It is expected that the user is comfortable using the gnu gcc
compiler and its asociated toolkit.

1) Latest Cygwin release
      earlier ones work but the latest is better by far and
      upgrading is now just a one click operation :-)
      http://www.cygwin.com

      For version V1.1.4 ( current version as of 9/22/2000 )
      after installation upgrade per these instructions
      http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2000-08/msg00256.html
      ( this will not be necessary for those using Cygwin snapshots
        later then 08 / 15 / 2000 )

2) a Cygwin compiled Perl
      I reccomend the binary release from Charles Wilson
      http://cygutils.netpedia.net/V1.1/perl-5.6.0/index.html

3) automake and autoconf but you might as well pick up
    the complete usr-local toolkit
    http://cygutils.netpedia.net/V1.1/usr-local/index.html

4) I HEARTILY reccomend installing this Win32 ( Non - X ) rxvt package
    http://www.io.com/~bub/rxvt.html
    to replace the command console


5) There is a small problem in the stock OpenGl Distribution
     I suggest you just grab mine from
     http://www.vso.cape.com/~nhv/files/cygwin/cygwin_opengl.ZIP
     There is some documentation in the included shell script

======

After installing the new Cygwin and support files
You should just be able to do from a Cygwin bash shell

cd to appropriate top SRC_DIR

aclocal
automake -a
autoconf
./configure
make
make install

for what it is worth here are the compiler flags I have been using
do this from bash shell prior to running configure

export
CFLAGS='-pipe -Wall -O2 -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fexpensive-optimizations
 -mpentium'
export
CXXFLAGS='-pipe -Wall -O2 -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fexpensive-optimizatio
ns -mpentium'

Cheers

Norman